Jackie and Charlie

By Dan Hagen

Charles Addams with his sports car and dog

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis once dated the cartoonist Charles Addams, a pairing that seems just about as strange and anything Addams ever created for his “Addams family” panel cartoons in the New Yorker.

According to the biography Charles Addams: A Cartoonist’s Life by Linda H. Davis, they got along wonderfully together. The former first lady played with his crossbows, rode with Addams in his Bentley at 110 mph and was a real fan.

“I love Pugsley and Lurch, but my favorite in Morticia,” Jackie said. “She and I have a lot more in common than you might think.”

Morticia takes a spin

Addams may have harbored hopes of marrying her, but Jackie killed those in one single chilly sentence. “Well, I couldn’t get married to you,” she said. “What would we talk about at the end of the say — cartoons?”

Morticia, indeed.